NFL sees record number of long pass TDs: good offense or terrible defense?

You probably already know this if you’ve checked your fantasy scores, but the NFL recorded a record number of 75-plus-yard passing touchdowns on Sunday—six, to be exact. (Hopefully some were for your team and none for your opponent’s.) Big plays are dramatic, big plays ignite or deflate the crowd, big plays get the highlight commentators whooping … but why did we see so many all at once?

The New York Times ran down the list of big passing plays, a list which doesn’t even include Adrian Peterson’s 80-yard run:

• An 85-yarder by Chicago’s Zach Miller against St. Louis;

• An 88-yarder by fellow Bear Jeremy Langford;

• A 78-yarder by Washington’s Matt Jones;

• An 80-yarder by Kansas City’s Charcandrick West against Denver;

• An 87-yarder by New York’s Odell Beckham Jr. against New England; and

• A 76-yarder by the Patriots’ Rob Gronkowski against the Giants.

So what can we glean from all this? Is the NFL at last shaking off its no-fun reputation and opening up the game? Are we headed to a spread-offense, send-everybody-deep era of glorious aerial gameplay? Of course not. Most of these plays were the result of defensive miscues and mistakes, bad angles, missed tackles, misread coverages, and much more. Several of the players making big plays were backups at the start of the season, but injuries have, as usual, decimated teams and left them scrambling to patch holes with often-overmatched backups.

This is a confluence of forces. It’s clear that the NFL is in an era of unprecedented offensive bias. Quarterbacks have more room to move, receivers have more latitude in going for the catch, and any time a defender wanders into the same area code, the receiver will make that throw-the-flag gesture. What that’s meant is that defenses have to be more conservative, but in surrendering the short-yardage play there’s always the possibility of a breakout play.

The good news? The later we get into the season, the more likely you are to see some of these short-yardage plays go very, very long. The bad news? That increases the odds one will break against you.

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